As Facebook continues to grasp the severity of the situation in Myanmar, where the UN has concluded that its social network plays a "determining role" in inciting genocide, the U.S. tech giant has completed a third sweep in recent months to remove bad actors from its platform.
Facebook said late Tuesday U.S. time that with this latest action it has removed a total of 135 Facebook accounts, 425 Pages, 17 Groups and an additional 15 Instagram accounts.
We're waiting for further confirmation on exactly what that means, but acting irrespective of posted content would represent an interesting change in its policing, and it could impact Facebook's efforts in Myanmar — and other areas — going forward.
That's promising but, unfortunately, it appears that Facebook is still reluctant to commit to opening a local office in Myanmar. That's something that local civic groups on the ground in Myanmar — who have worked with Facebook to improve the situation — have called a key requirement for meaningful progress.
Facebook declined to comment on the possibility of a Myanmar-based office when we asked.
The company has pledged to increase to 100 the number of Burmese translators working on Myanmar-based content by the end of this year. It has said a number of times that it is working on AI-based solutions, too, but cracks still appear.
We more than 100 people reported a racist #Burmese #Facebook profile as it names "Dog Allah". After few days, Facebook replied us that "it doesn't go against one of our specific community standard".
Equally, while reaching 100 translators means Facebook has more than doubled its Burmese-compliant content checking contingent, the figure is dwarfed by others. Myanmar's army reportedly has 700 people working on its own Facebook strategy.
For instance one source told us Myanmar's military has up to 700 troops working on Facebook. The company hopes to have 100 content reviewers for Myanmar by the end of the year. It has other teams doing safety and security, but there's a definite mismatch.
That response is backed, according to the sources, by the findings of a BSR report that was released last month.
If this is consistent with the company's strategy, then it is troubling, because that doesn't tell the whole truth of what is a very nuanced issue.
While it is correct that the report did mention the potential risks associated with an office — around both the safety of staff and potential for government pressure — the conclusion wasn't that Facebook shouldn't open the office. It was that there are "advantages and disadvantages" to doing so.
So you could equally argue that it should open an office if you choose to focus the positive argument from the report.
More generally, it is certainly ironic that Facebook is (partially) citing insight from a report that it controversially released on the eve of the U.S. mid-term elections, a move that many took as an effort to bury the findings while the news cycle was focused on a key political moment.
While it may not get the same press attention as Russian-backed U.S. election meddling, the Facebook-Myanmar situation is a key one to watch in 2019. Facebook is the de facto internet in Southeast Asia and other emerging markets, so its influence extends beyond anything people in Western markets can begin to imagine.